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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22592983">Tread Lightly On My Ground</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlossomsintheMist/pseuds/BlossomsintheMist'>BlossomsintheMist</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Starsky &amp; Hutch</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>1970s, 1970s fashion, Affection, Affectionate Insults, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bottom David Starsky, Bottom Ken Hutchinson, Canon-Typical Violence, Comfort Food, Comfort/Angst, Comics references, Control Issues, Cooking, Cuddling &amp; Snuggling, Developing Relationship, Discussion of Internalized Homophobia, Dom David Starsky, Dom/sub Undertones, Domestic Relationship, Eating, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fast Food, Flirting, Fluff and Angst, Food, Food Metaphors, Friends to Lovers, Gentle Kissing, Got Together Post Sweet Revenge, Hutch's Moon and Star Necklace, Implied Sexual Content, Injury Recovery, Insecure Ken Hutchinson, Internalized Homophobia, Kissing, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Marvel Comics Reference, Naked Cuddling, Neck Kissing, New Relationship, Nicknames, Nightmares, Passivity in Bed, Past Relationship(s), Past Violence, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pet Names, Physical Therapy, Post Canon Get Together, Post-Canon, Post-Coital Cuddling, Post-Episode: s04e22 Sweet Revenge, Post-Injury Recovery, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Praise Kink, Protective David Starsky, Protective Ken Hutchinson, Protectiveness, Relationship Discussions, Relationship Issues, Secret Relationship, Self-Esteem Issues, Sexual Content, Sexual Insecurity, Sexual Passivity, Sleeping Together, Sleepy Cuddles, Sub Ken Hutchinson, Switch David Starsky, Switch Ken Hutchinson, Switching, Top David Starsky, Top Ken Hutchinson, Venice Place, but they're not really aware of it as what it is, in the sense that they're officially in the closet to everyone except each other, references to anal sex, sex issues, talking about sex</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 14:00:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,324</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22592983</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlossomsintheMist/pseuds/BlossomsintheMist</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of "Sweet Revenge," Starsky and Hutch finally acted on their feelings for each other.  It gave them the extra push they needed to begin a romantic and sexual relationship with each other - but the relationship is still very new, and they haven't worked out all the kinks yet (in some ways quite literally).  They attempt to get back to some semblance of normal life as they continue to explore a new relationship with each other, and it doesn't always go smoothly.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ken Hutchinson/David Starsky</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>43</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Tread Lightly On My Ground</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>
  <em>"I'm your music<br/>I'm your song<br/>Play me time and time again and make me strong<br/>Make me sing, make me sound<br/>Andante, Andante<br/>Tread lightly on my ground<br/>Andante, Andante<br/>Oh please don't let me down"<br/>--"Andante, Andante," ABBA</em>
</p><p>You might thinking that neither of them probably listen to ABBA (or maybe they DO), but I promise the choice of this song is going somewhere.</p><p>While this fic is overall a slow and sweet establishing relationship fic, one of the main focuses will be on sexual issues focusing around Hutch being unusually passive in bed with Starsky because he's afraid of being too aggressive (for like fifty different reasons).  There are dom/sub themes (with both of them in both roles, but focused on submissive Hutch), but neither of them is thinking about it in those terms (or really knows much about BDSM, in this fic, at least), so a lot of it has them trying to work that out without having any official terms for what they want to do.  There will also be recurring explorations of internalized homophobia and workplace homophobia, as well as societal homophobia.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Hutch shuddered awake again, breathing hard, wet and cold with sweat, and for a moment he expected to be back in that uncomfortable chair at the hospital, surrounded by readouts and blinking lights and machines and all the tubes and wires that he tried not to resent for being in between him and Starsky because they were helping his partner, and he looked for Starsky frantically the way he had every time he’d woken up from a doze there, terrified that while he’d been sleeping, while his eyes hadn’t been on him to keep the connection between them alive, as if as long as he was looking at him he could somehow share his strength between them, Starsky would have taken a turn for the worse, somehow.</p><p>His eyes found nothing but a peaceful, familiar darkness, confusingly enough, and Hutch panted for breath, panicky, because why was it dark, where was Starsky, he—</p><p>A warm, hard palm slid down the bare skin of his chest, fingers rubbing in a soft circle over his front.  A warm body curled around him, pressed up against his back so that he could feel the soft tickle of chest hair against his bare skin.  Hutch jolted, surprised and disoriented for just a moment, wondering if he was still dreaming, this time something too good to be true—</p><p>“What’s up, Blondie?”  A hoarse, sleepy question, slurred out against the back of his neck with a warm, damp gust of breath.  Starsky’s voice, rough and drowsy.  “Ya’all right?”</p><p>Starsky.  Lying in bed, his own familiar, comfortable bed, with Starsky.  He could smell the familiar smell of his own apartment, all plants and growing things.  Potting soil and sandalwood incense.  He could smell Starsky right there behind him, too, the musky, male, sleepy-sweaty scent of him that meant he was real, and there, the familiar smell (leather and sandalwood aftershave and Starsky’s sweat, the smell of it as familiar to him as his own) that meant he was safe, safer than he could have ever been anywhere else, that for years had meant security to him in a way nothing else could, combined with the sweaty, sexy, musky smell, earthy and intimate, of them in bed together.</p><p><em>Was he all right</em>? Hutch wondered, half-hysterically.  After all, he’d just woken up in his own bed, in his own apartment, and not known where he was until Starsky had spoken to him.  “I—yeah,” he said, but it came out breathy and stuttery and gasping, almost questioning, and not convincing at all.  It sure wouldn’t have convinced him.</p><p>“Mmm,” Starsky said, clearly dubious.  His hand flattened out over Hutch’s heart, where it was still rapidly beating, pounding in his chest as if it hadn’t yet realized that it was safe, Starsky was all right, after all.  His hand felt so warm, all hard palm and strong callused fingers, against skin still chilled and pebbled with cold sweat and fear.  “Well, I’m right here, in case you need me.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Hutch whispered.  He tilted his head back, let it find Starsky’s shoulder and rest there, reveling in the impossible goodness of it, the feel of that muscled shoulder warm and strong beneath him, improbably strong and sturdy considering Starsky was still notably underweight.  “Yeah.”</p><p>“So, do ya?”</p><p>“Mmm?” Hutch asked.  He was still trying to catch his breath.  Shadows of the dream were all around him, tangled up with still persistent fears and shards of memory.</p><p>“Need me, doofus.”  There was a sleep-thick laugh in Starsky’s voice, and it made Hutch smile, too, insult and all.  He reached down in front of him, groping blindly until he found Starsky’s hand and could wrap his own around it, drag it up to his lips.</p><p>“Always,” he murmured.</p><p>“You big sap,” Starsky said, a whole world of affection in his tone.  His other hand came around Hutch, too, started stroking his chest.  Hutch sighed, closed his eyes and let himself drift on it.  Right here, right now, Starsky’s arms around him, this was real.  They were no longer caught in the endless limbo of the hospital.  They were free, home, safe.  Starsky was so much stronger, defeating even the fear that he wouldn’t succeed in getting his old strength and energy back, and he had another physical therapy appointment tomorrow.  Or, more likely, later that day, but Hutch couldn’t be bothered to check the time.  He was almost ready, the physical therapist kept saying.  Almost ready—and Hutch could attest to that, the strength in Starsky’s arms and legs, the core strength he had needed to roll Hutch over earlier that night and rail him so hard he could still feel twinges in his ass and his thighs and his lower back, even in his toes.  He didn’t think anything could have made him happier.  Starsky would be back on the street again soon, by his side again, the way he should be, and then everything would be even better than it was already.  It felt too good to be true, enough that it gave Hutch little flutters of nerves whenever he thought about it too long or too hard.  Was it all right to be this happy, or was it presumptuous of him to revel in it like this?  Had the universe given him this impossible joy only to take it away from him again?</p><p>Maybe that was why he still had nightmares, nightmares that brought him back to the hospital, Starsky just slipping away while he could do nothing but watch, his heart slowing and then stopping and Hutch’s own heart seizing as if it would stop too, as if it couldn’t beat itself without its partner in Starsky’s chest—</p><p>“You’re thinking too much,” Starsky mumbled behind him, against his neck, turned his head and pressed a soft damp kiss to the pulse in the side of Hutch’s neck, laid another one just behind his jaw.  “I can practically hear it.  Rats runnin’ all around in that rat trap you got.  S’too late for that much thinkin’.”</p><p>“S-sorry,” Hutch mumbled.  “I—did I wake you?  You—” <em>you still need the sleep</em>.  He could just imagine Starsky’s reaction to that much coddling, if he actually said that out loud.  He’d gotten impatient with Hutch’s mother hen routine months ago.  “You go back to sleep, Starsk.  It’ll be an early morning.”</p><p>“Earlier for you, buddy,” Starsky pointed out.  “’Sides, you think I can sleep while you’re lying here tense as a board, fretting yourself into next week?”</p><p>“I’m not fretting,” Hutch tried.  It was an outrageous lie, and he knew it, but he just couldn’t think of anything else to say.  It felt beyond stupid to tell Starsky that he couldn’t sleep because he was dreaming about him in the hospital.  Starsky had been the one shot, the one <em>actually in</em> the hospital, for crying out loud, and while he’d jolted awake a few times in the hospital, then in the first few months of his recovery at home, shaking and shuddering, it had been . . . months since the last time.  Hutch still woke himself up with a plea or a scream or a sob on his lips, in tears half the time, practically every night, though at least usually he was able to keep it quiet enough that he didn’t wake Starsky, too.  He felt like an idiot.</p><p>The one single drawback of Starsky’s recovery was that it had been a hell of a lot easier to pull that off when his partner was sleeping the heavy sleep of those drugged to their eyeballs with pain meds every night.  Since he’d been feeling better, of course, they’d been making love, and that was almost as good as the drugs for knocking an exhausted Starsky out, sending him deep into the satisfied sleep of the well-loved and sated.  Hutch realized with a sudden burst of pride and pleasure that Starsky hadn’t woken up with nightmares even once since they’d started sharing their bodies that way.</p><p>But if that wasn’t going to be enough to knock him out so he slept through Hutch’s . . . disturbances anymore—well, Hutch didn’t know what he was going to do.  He couldn’t very well justify waking Starsky up every night, even if his partner hadn’t still been on the tail end of recovering, but he wasn’t sure he had the—the emotional or mental fortitude to give up the pure, simple, perfect comfort of simply sharing a bed with him.  They’d been doing that practically since Starsky had come home from the hospital, first in Starsky’s place, now more often than not at Hutch’s own since Starsky had become more mobile, even before they’d started screwing each other into the mattress, and it felt just about perfect, all on its own.  Still did.  Hutch thought that he didn’t even need the sex if he could feel Starsky’s arms around him every night, or feel him sleeping in his own, tight up against his chest, just to <em>feel </em>him there, and how was that for sappy, huh, Starsk?</p><p>“Mmhmm,” Starsky said in Hutch’s ear, in just about the same tone he’d have used if Lenny the Glass Eye had told them he’d given up the fence business and was going legit.  “Sure, Blintz.”</p><p>Hutch sighed.</p><p>“Nightmare, huh?” Starsky added, and Hutch had a moment of fond, grateful, half-hysterical despair at how entirely transparent he apparently was to his partner.  Starsky squeezed Hutch’s hand tightly, palm around his fingers, ran his thumb over his as he petted Hutch’s stomach with his other hand.  “How many is that this week then, huh?” he asked, softly, mouth still warm and soft against Hutch’s ear.</p><p>Hutch swallowed hard and didn’t answer, and Starsky sighed again, warm breath ruffling Hutch’s hair.  “Well,” he said, “d’you think you can get back to sleep?”  The question was full of a gentle practicality, Starsky kind enough to let him off the hook.</p><p>So of course Hutch found himself muttering a testy, “How should I know?” into his pillow like a complete heel.</p><p>Starsky just laughed, though, and pulled his hand free of Hutch’s to run it gently back through Hutch’s hair, snuggling up tighter against his back.  Hutch found that he didn’t quite know what to do with his own hand without Starsky’s in it and ended up clasping it against his own chest in a fist.  Like that he could feel for himself how quickly his heart was still beating.  <em>Still</em>.  No wonder Starsky hadn’t bought it, he thought ruefully.  If he had felt that.</p><p>Starsky ran his fingers through Hutch’s hair some more, bit lightly at his earlobe, slid one leg up and around over Hutch’s so the hair all over his legs caught teasingly against his skin and his own finer leg hair and made little eager shivers go through his entire body, goosebumps rising over his skin.  “Need me to help you get sleepy?” came the husky murmur, coupled with a hot tongue licking along behind his ear in a way that had Hutch’s eyes flying open wide and his breath catching in his throat, his face flushing as that wet, teasing heat went straight to his groin.  He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised at how fast Starsky had learned his body, had learned <em>exactly</em> what buttons to push, and when, and how, but <em>Jesus</em>.</p><p>“Y-y-you need rest t-too,” he managed to groan out, cursing his tongue for giving away exactly how that had affected him with that stutter.  He took a long, dragging breath, tried to compose himself.  “You already—I mean, before . . . took a lot out of <em>me</em>, Starsk.  I know you’re the—the Incredible Hulk in bed, but maybe we should take it easy.”</p><p>Starsky laughed, low and husky enough that it slid hot down Hutch’s spine, twisted in his belly and made his cock take real notice, running his hands warmly, voluptuously, all over Hutch’s body now, over his front and back up along his sides, made him shiver all over.  He felt <em>so warm</em>.  “What,” he murmured, a grin in that low, dark, huskily sensual voice, “your cute little butt too sore?”</p><p>It was, actually, a little sore.  In the most wonderfully delicious way possible.  Hutch was looking forward to feeling it all through his shift the next day, a shift that had become longer than ever before without Starsky there to share it.  He knew he was earning himself an all-new reputation, even more dire than the one he’d had already, for his shorter than ever temper and impatience, and he knew he was taking it out unfairly on his new—his <em>temporary</em>—partner, but he couldn’t seem to help it.  Detective Emerson was a good detective, a good cop, Hutch could admit that on his better days, but no matter what else the other detective had going for him, he wasn’t Starsky.  He missed just looking over and seeing Starsky, missed the wordless communication they’d always had, the way they were always on the same page about everything important without even needing to discuss it, even missed his damn striped tomato of a car.  Not that he’d have ever told him that.  The first time a suspect had gotten away because Emerson’s car wasn’t fast enough—well, Hutch had fumed the whole rest of the damn day.  Knowing that his own car wouldn’t have performed any better had just made it worse.  Taking the soreness of their lovemaking into work with him wasn’t as good as having Starsky there with him would have been, or even better, being sore from making love with Starsky and being able to look over and meet his knowing glance (and probably have to hide a smile and a blush every time he did, if he knew himself) every time he shifted uncomfortably in his seat or rubbed at his back.  But it would still be a reminder of Starsky—and his returning strength and their new joy in each other—and he hoped it would be with him the whole day, for that utterly wonderful reason.</p><p>“Yes!” Hutch said, laughing a little himself now.  He tilted his head back to get a look at Starsky, smiling at him and raising one arm to slide his hand along the back of his partner’s neck, warm from sleep and being under the covers, up into his hair, so it curled irrepressibly around his fingers.  If he’d been hankering for another round, he’d have denied it, of course, but well, it was true, first of all, and, more importantly, he didn’t want Starsky getting any ideas when he should be resting.  He knew how raring to go ahead and please him Starsky got, quite intimately now, how gung ho he was on the whole concept of pleasing Hutch in bed, how he would push himself and push himself just to make extra, that last little bit, sure that Hutch’s mind was entirely blown.  He didn’t seem satisfied unless Hutch was gasping for breath, barely able to even contemplate getting out of bed for the next few hours, at least.</p><p>Even now, Starsky was grinning eagerly, a little sheepishly, as he ran both hands up over Hutch’s stomach and chest, then shifted them to hold him close, squeezing him a little before he just held him in a simple hug.  There was a sweetness to that sheepish smile, the eagerness and not-quite anxiety, the way he cast those eyes with their long lashes down just for a moment before he met Hutch’s eyes again, then leaned up quickly and kissed his eyebrow, then his cheek, then his nose, then, very briefly, his lips, then the side of his mouth, his chin, that gave away something of that eagerness to please, or whatever it really was.  Eagerness, hell, it was more like a determination to please, one that still had Hutch’s whole body aching pleasantly.  He’d always thought of himself as quite something in the sack, but if he was going to keep up with that pure dedicated energy—when Starsky wasn’t even one hundred percent yet!—he was going to have to step up his workouts, that was for sure.  Just to start out with.</p><p>He found himself grinning, laughing at Starsky’s playful kisses all over his face, and twisted himself halfway back toward him, stroked his hand a little more gently, softly, lovingly, through the thick curls of Starsky’s hair.  It was wild and very mussed at the moment, from loving and then sleep.  “Really?” Starsky asked, grinning like it was the best compliment Hutch had ever given him.  “You mean I really left you sore?”</p><p>“Yes, really,” Hutch pretended to grumble, making his voice go tight with asperity in a well-worn, familiar routine.  “And you’re not even done with physical therapy.  Damned if I know where you get the energy.  Or what I’m going to do once you’re back at a hundred percent.  My ass is going to be grass—and I’ll have to sit in your car all goddamned day and think about it.”  He could see Starsky biting his lip, his eyes dancing with laughter even in the dim light, and elbowed him in the stomach, slapped him there lightly, pretending to be even more annoyed, even though he was really anything but, and it was hard to keep himself from smiling.  “And now you’re laughing at me,” he added, in his best grousing tone, “honestly, Starsk, a little sympathy wouldn’t hurt.”</p><p>Starsky lost his battle against his laughter and snickered, then laughed outright, biting his lip as he lost control of his mirth.  Hutch pretended to scowl at him a moment longer before he couldn’t hold it back, either, and dissolved into laughter of his own, rolling over just enough to bury his face in Starsky’s bare shoulder.  “We’ll just have to switch off, then, boy,” Starsky chortled, slapping Hutch’s side lightly with his open palm.  “If you think you’ve got what it takes.”</p><p>Hutch swallowed his laughter with a determined effort, so he could school his face into enough seriousness to look into Starsky’s eyes and say, “Have I got what it takes,” deliberately, “to pound you into the mattress?  Is that what you’re saying?”  He slid one leg over Starsky’s, rolled him onto his back in the bed to lie on top of him, still careful to reign in his strength, to be gentle, even as he manhandled him playfully.  “You’d better believe it, pal,” he mock-growled, even as his hands were creeping up to bury themselves lovingly, steadyingly, in Starsky’s hair again.  The way their bodies rubbed together with the movements, warm skin against warm skin, was awfully distracting, but Hutch didn’t let himself dwell on it.  He knew what would happen if he did.</p><p>Starsky was still grinning and laughing, but even as Hutch watched, the smile softened on his face.  He squeezed both hands on Hutch’s ribs.  “Yeah?” he murmured.  “You planning on proving that to me, big, blond, and beautiful?”</p><p>Hutch blinked down at him, a little confused, because he hadn’t he just said he was?  Starsky had stopped playing by the rules of the game, with the soft gentleness of that question, and he wasn’t sure why.  “Yeah,” he said, still confused.  “’Course I am.”  He tried a laugh, warming to his theme a bit.  “I mean, you don’t think I plan to confine myself to hands and mouth or bottoming for you for the rest of my natural life, do you?”</p><p>“Rest of your natural life, huh,” Starsky murmured, and his soft smile widened.  Hutch felt himself flush, all the way to his hairline, but he refused to look away.  He’d already made his declarations of faithfulness.  Starsky’s eyes softened even more, his smile going tenderly crooked in a way Hutch still didn’t understand.  “To tell ya the truth, I was wonderin’,” he said.</p><p>“You were?” Hutch asked, distantly aghast, feeling his forehead knot with confusion.  “Why?”  Hadn’t they always been equal in everything else?  Why wouldn’t they share their bodies equally, too?</p><p>Did Starsky think he was that—that selfish?  Had he noticed how much Hutch liked it, giving it all up to him, and thought he’d never want to pass up his chance for it, not even long enough to switch off and give Starsky his shot at it?  That didn’t sit well with him at all.</p><p>Starsky’s eyes were still gentle, piercingly tender, as if he was seeing a little too much, things that maybe even Hutch wasn’t entirely aware of.  “I dunno,” he said, softly, but Hutch had an idea that he thought he did know and wasn’t sure how to feel about that, if he should be teed off at his partner for his assumptions, for thinking he knew something about Hutch that even Hutch didn’t know, or just accepting that of course that was so and asking for an explanation as humbly as he could manage it.  Of course, the last few times he’d challenged Starsky over how well the other man knew him, he’d ended up with egg all over his face in a big way, so that should probably tell him something.  It made Hutch feel tender and vulnerable all over, like his whole body was preparing for a blow and he didn’t even intend to defend himself, his throat aching and eyes prickling as if before tears.  “Just didn’t really seem like you were in a hurry to go for it, is all,” Starsky said, slow and still soft, careful.</p><p>Hutch felt like the blow he’d been waiting for had landed, had knocked the wind right out of him, brained him good, but oddly hadn’t hurt at all, not with Starsky’s gentleness in delivering it.  He had to struggle to swallow, had to blink down at the other man.  “Well, I do plan on it,” he finally managed, and Starsky just grinned, a bright smile in the darkness of the room, the white of his teeth very visible.</p><p>“Great!” he said, and his voice was totally sincere.  “You just let me know, blue eyes.”  His eyes creased with his smile, Hutch could see it even in the dim light, and he slid his hands up Hutch’s bare back, over his shoulders and up into his hair in a mirror of how Hutch was holding him, tugging his head down and leaning up enough to lay a kiss on his forehead.  His lips were warm, soft against his skin, and Hutch felt himself shiver, felt it shudder all the way down through his body to his toes, even as Starsky’s hands smoothed back down to his shoulders as if to soothe it away.  He closed his eyes against their prickling sting and had to swallow hard.  He wasn’t even sure why, just that he felt suddenly weak and didn’t bother to fight it as Starsky tugged him down, pulled his head down against his shoulder.</p><p>He resisted just long enough to say, firmly, “You better believe I will,” meeting Starsky’s eyes, before he let him draw him down to his shoulder, Starsky’s strong hands stroking over his shoulders and back again, up into his hair, even as Hutch let his fingers curl into Starsky’s own hair, against his curls.  He could feel Starsky’s release of breath beneath him, a soft sigh, and closed his eyes, stroking Starsky’s hair, turning his thumbs to stroke up and down over his temples in soft circles.  Starsky, for his part, stroked and petted Hutch’s shoulders and back a bit longer, rubbed at the back of his neck, then reached down, fumbling with their twisted covers before he got them straightened out and pulled them all up over Hutch’s back, covering both of them as he tucked them in around Hutch’s neck.  He slid his hands down beneath them and over Hutch’s shoulders again, down over the bareness of his back.  The truth was, Hutch hadn’t been cold, and his shivers were more about Starsky’s close proximity than anything else, but he didn’t mind the caretaking, despite himself, especially as Starsky curled his palm warmly over the back of Hutch’s neck.  That felt—right, made him feel right, finally settled and at rest in a way he hadn’t been since he woke up.  He could feel his breath caught between him and Starsky’s shoulder, warming the air between them and coalescing into dampness on skin.  He slid his fingers down the side of Starsky’s neck, circled them in slow shapes over his shoulder, in reciprocation.  Starsky sighed, softly, and tilted his head just enough to press another soft kiss in against Hutch’s temple.</p><p>All right, if he thought about it, Hutch could admit that maybe, yeah, he’d maybe been a little hesitant about . . . asserting himself in bed.  He certainly hadn’t done it as much as he usually did.  Normally he didn’t have any problem with that, with taking charge, or being as commanding or aggressive as his partner seemed to want, but he’d felt almost like pushing at all might . . . might destroy everything between them.  What if he pushed too hard, too fast?  Starsky hadn’t exactly been sure about the whole two men together, sexually, thing in the first place, and Hutch had developed a lot of habits over the years that were hard to shake—of pulling back just a little bit on his flirting to keep it in what felt like their safe zone, never letting it cross over, never letting himself really <em>want</em>, that made it hard to—to let himself put the moves on his partner.</p><p>Even more than that, Starsky was still recovering, and what if Hutch’s demands or his desires made him feel self-conscious or inadequate, if his body somehow failed to perform how they both expected?  What if he offended him somehow?  Hutch had just about been ready to pass out from self-consciousness the first time Starsky had really, seriously made a move on him, convinced he’d do something to offend him horribly and ruin everything between them forever if he responded at all.  So of course he’d just gone bright red and frozen solid and stuttered something stupid, which had offended Starsky enough, but apparently he’d forgiven Hutch for being such a clown before he could even react to his own stupidity, because he hadn’t stopped.  Thank God, he hadn’t stopped.  What if he hurt him, which would be even worse, or made him angry?  What if he hurt him <em>physically</em>?  He still wasn’t used to his partner being physically fragile at all, and the knowledge that Starsky really couldn’t take the roughhousing that had become second nature to them over the years at the moment had made him tentative and uncertain, enough that he knew Starsky was annoyed by it and growing more so by the day, but he didn’t know what else to do rather than try to be as gentle as possible.  It was hard enough just to work out with him, helping him hit all the marks the physical therapists had set, all the while terrified he’d do it wrong and hurt him, his stomach still a knot of nerves each and every time, even after all this time and practice, and that was supposed to be rougher, that was about strength and not about loving.  Every time the physical therapist talked to him and said some new, dire, horrifying thing about what the bullets had done to Starsky’s body, done to Starsky inside, Hutch could feel how he wanted to make his hands, his touch, gentler than ever, wanted to hover and fret and just take such good care of Starsky, make sure he never did anything to ever hurt him ever again.  Which, obviously, Starsky didn’t tend to appreciate.</p><p>It had felt so much easier to follow Starsky’s lead, to do whatever he seemed to want.  It had seemed safer to take each and every step slowly, carefully, even more slowly than Starsky seemed to want—well, okay, Hutch had been moving a lot more slowly than he knew Starsky had wanted, progressing with an aching slowness from kissing—well, from just kissing, to kissing while they rubbed off against each other to hands on each other’s dicks, to Hutch’s mouth on Starsky’s cock.  He’d even refused to let Starsky reciprocate, driving his partner crazy with his impatience, until he was sure he could handle it without going all breathless and panting and ending up in pain from his reduced lung capacity.  Maybe that was why Starsky was so determined to show him a good time now, Hutch thought with a little smile—he’d created a monster.  A loving monster.  The best kind of monster.</p><p>It had felt only natural after that to offer himself up for Starsky’s cock however he wanted it, whenever he was ready.  And more than that, Hutch had <em>wanted it</em>, wanted it that way, had been practically trembling for it, the need to feel Starsky strong and healthy, around and in him, to . . . give himself up more completely than he’d ever done with any other lover in his life.  After all, this was <em>Starsky</em>.  He’d wanted to—<em>needed</em> to give him everything.  He hadn’t even realized how fantastic it was going to feel, he’d just wanted to receive him, feel him deep in his own body.</p><p>Hutch had been a little shocked by how <em>much</em> he’d enjoyed it, to tell the truth, how he’d ended up feeling like he’d melted into the bed with helpless, wonderful, all-consuming pleasure, like he couldn’t have moved or resisted anything Starsky wanted from him, wanted to do with him, even if he’d wanted to.  He’d always trusted Starsky more than anyone else, could give in to being held or being pushed around with him in a way that had never, ever been good with anyone else, so Hutch guessed he shouldn’t have been surprised at how incredible it had felt, but it had felt—it had felt amazing in a way he’d never even imagined, and then he’d been left melted into their bed, stretched out across mattress and pillows underneath Starsky’s warm, wonderful body, panting into the pillows and reeling, and Starsky had been muttering soft words and endearments and—and <em>praise</em> into the back of Hutch’s neck, his hair, following those words with kisses, over his neck and ears and shoulders and down his spine, and—well, Hutch felt a little embarrassed over exactly how much he’d enjoyed that, like all his efforts to be the big man in bed, always pleasing and always memorable and always the one doing the pleasing, the—the doing to, had all been a big old lie, a pointless pretension, if what he’d really wanted, apparently, all along, was to bend over and get his ass reamed by his very, very male partner and not have to do a damn thing.  But it was Starsky, so it felt right and natural and—and real, and he’d managed not to get too hung up on it.</p><p>But the idea of turning it around, of doing the same thing to Starsky, made Hutch go cold all over, like an icy chill settling over his whole body, into his bones, and at first he wasn’t quite sure why.  He wasn’t really that godawful selfish, was he, wanting to keep that feeling all for himself?  But no, it wasn’t, couldn’t be that—he—he <em>wanted</em> to make Starsky feel <em>that good</em>, more than anything he wanted that.</p><p>But he wasn’t quite sure he could, to begin with—what if Starsky just flat didn’t like it as much as Hutch did?  He’d always been so damn masculine.  And what if he were expecting the fireworks Hutch had so obviously felt, and he couldn’t give it to him?  What if Hutch wasn’t as good at it as Starsky was—hell, what if he wasn’t <em>any</em> good at it?  It wasn’t like he knew anything about it, or knew what he was doing—sure, he’d played around a girl’s back door before, flirted plenty with other guys, even done a little bit more, but he’d never done anything like this.  What if his inexperience became obvious?  Considering how Starsky seemed to regard how—promiscuous Hutch had been the last few years, that would sure be embarrassing.  What if he—screwed it up somehow?  The thought sent a wave of anxiety through him, leaving him suddenly sure he’d screw it up somehow if—when—if they tried it.</p><p>What if he hurt Starsky?</p><p>That was it, the fear really turning him cold, making him shake.  If he didn’t know what he was doing, if he didn’t know how to make it good, he didn’t know how to make it not hurt, how to make it feel good instead, didn’t know how rough to be, didn’t know how much Starsky could take yet.  He’d always loved the act of—of fucking, how it felt, what if he lost himself in it and got too rough?  What if he liked it too much, what if he hurt Starsky somehow and didn’t realize because he was so lost in his own pleasure?  God, what if he <em>scared</em> him?  He knew he could be clumsy, and what if he did it wrong?  What if he really hurt him, that way?  Starsky was almost totally healed, and he knew it, but Hutch couldn’t help picturing incisions popping open, red blood all over their bed just like it had been all over the asphalt in the car park, and he felt his hands start to tremble, his breathing hitch and quicken, hid his face against Starsky’s shoulder and tried to press out even breaths, make them come slow and relaxed and not trembling and short and anxious.</p><p>“Hey, what’s this,” Starsky murmured softly into his hair, hand coming up and his fingers with their short nails gently scratching at the base of Hutch’s scalp, along his hairline and the back of his neck.</p><p>“It’s nothing,” Hutch muttered, lips against his shoulder, closing his eyes against the darkness, against his pillow.  “You wanna go back to sleep, huh?”</p><p>“Well, I don’t know if I wanta do that, now that you mention it,” Starsky said.</p><p>“God, why not?” Hutch asked with some irritation, pushing himself up on one arm to roll over Starsky’s shoulder and check the time on the clock beside his bed, squinting at it until he could make out the placement of the hands.  Christ.  “It’s 3 am.  We’re really going to regret it tomorrow if we don’t get some more sleep, and soon.”</p><p>“Physical therapy,” Starsky said dismissively.  “I’ve done a lot more’n that on less sleep.”</p><p>“Oh, sure,” Hutch muttered with a roll of his eyes.  Starsky wasn’t exactly at his best when sleep deprived.  “Yeah, right.  I wouldn’t go that far, buddy.”</p><p>“What was that?” Starsky murmured.  He was kissing up and down behind Hutch’s ear again, tugging gently at the lobe with his teeth, making little pleasurable tingles of sensation go all through Hutch’s body.  “Coulda sworn I heard you muttering something.”</p><p>Hutch gave him a quick, sunny grin, that ostentatious dismissal of his grousing in the way that had always made Starsky laugh, and was rewarded with a smile.  “Oh, nothing,” he said, “not a thing,” and his voice was coming out of him low and husky now, as he leaned in, slid a hand up behind the back of Starsky’s head, gripped his hand tight in his hair, against his skull.  Starsky sighed, pleasurably, his eyelids fluttering closed.</p><p>There, Hutch liked that reaction.  He liked that a lot.  He leaned forward, kissed Starsky, a real one, soft and gentle and warm, nice and slow to warm up, circling his fingers at the back of his head as he did.  There was a moment while Starsky just relaxed into the kiss, let his mouth open soft and sweet for it, and then he was responding eagerly, pressing close up against Hutch until their chests rubbed together and there was no space between them at all.  The soft rub of Starsky’s chest hair against his own smooth chest was still an incredible thrill, one that made Hutch go hot all over, even more when Starsky gave a little “mmm,” of pleasure and pressed forward into his mouth, hand stroking at the back of his neck.  He thought he was pretty good at kissing, personally, and he always put everything he had into kissing Starsky, but the simple act of it, of feeling his tongue against his bottom lip, in his mouth, tasting his breath, feeling Starsky’s little groans on his own tongue, made him so hot he felt like he was ice melting into water and then floating away.  Hutch kept it soft, slow, sweet and romantic, gentle even as Starsky’s enthusiastic lips and tongue stroked and teased and demanded more, and eventually Starsky started playing along with a short little gasp, letting it go all soft and gentle and sweet, tongues delicate and teasing and light in each other’s mouths before he pulled back, let Hutch press softness onto his lips again, feeling the warm wetness of his already well kissed mouth and the soft wet slide that turned into more of the same, Starsky’s hands coming up to stroke his face, his neck, slide back into his hair, even as their lips lingered over the kiss.</p><p>Eventually Hutch let himself let go the control of the kiss, just a little, let Starsky turn the one kiss into soft, lingering kisses, one after the other, never moving away from his mouth like the taste of it was too good to pass up.  Hutch felt himself give a tiny little groan, let his eyes flutter closed, his other hand come up to blindly trace the lines of Starsky’s face, fingers lingering on his eyebrow, following the shape of it, tenderly curling into his hair, tracing down over his cheekbone, along the line of his jaw, even as Starsky’s hand fell to his shoulder, rubbing warmly along bare skin, petting him, gripping him and massaging into his muscles, pulling him even closer.</p><p>Hutch let Starsky be the one to pull away, and by the time he did, he was breathless, dizzy and gone, like he didn’t even remember how to breathe, and let his head rest on the pillow as he gasped for breath, his lips wet and hot and tingling with sensation, tender in the cold air, felt his mouth hang open, heard himself give a shaking little moan of a sound.  He’d never really felt the urge to blush over making noise in bed before, not since Van, anyway, but whenever he made one of those pathetic little whimpering groans in bed with Starsky, he felt his face go hot, down his neck, all the way back into his ears.</p><p>“Your face is so red already I can hardly even see you blush,” Starsky whispered against his cheek, but it was so tender, so incredibly fond, that Hutch didn’t even feel too embarrassed by it.  He almost pointed out that it was so dark they couldn’t really see much of anything, but then Starsky’s finger traced a line along his jaw, up over his cheek, to follow the line of his ear, and that—that was very distracting, and empirical realities suddenly seemed to take a backseat to feeling, to romance.  “Your ears are all hot and red, too,” Starsky murmured.  He was petting Hutch’s ear with one finger.  “I like it when I’m kissing you, and I can see ‘em goin’ all red like that.  Means I’m getting you hot.”</p><p>“Like you ever kiss me and I <em>don’t</em>?” Hutch asked breathlessly, disbelievingly.</p><p>Starsky grinned.  “See,” he said.  “Like my kissing just fine now, don’t you, Hutchinson?”  His hand was tangling in Hutch’s hair at his neck, now, curling in it, playing with it, pressing it up, back behind his ear, fingers teasing down his neck, and Hutch squirmed pleasurably under it, feeling his breathing, which had just been steadying out, go all uneven all over again.</p><p>God, one stupid crack to get under Starsky’s skin, up his nose, make him think about kissing Hutch, maybe grabbing him and planting one on him, a good, deep, wet one, all the way, just to prove him wrong, back when he thought that was all he could ever, ever have, even in his wildest dreams, and he was going to hear about it for the rest of his damn life.  That much was already abundantly clear.  Hutch’s face really did feel hot.  He could feel himself getting even hotter and redder.  The only consolation was that Starsky probably couldn’t tell, though of course his hand was still teasingly warm on the side of Hutch’s neck as he traced his ear, his jaw, played with the hair at his nape, curling it around his fingers.  He felt himself fumble, stutter a little, look down, before he could bring his eyes back up, and flushed even warmer.  “Look,” he said, after a moment of searching for what to say.  “I don’t know, partner.  Maybe you should kiss me again so I can make a really—really careful determination.  You know, make a study of it.  Measure exactly how skilled you really are against an objective benchmark—”</p><p>“You,” Starsky said, a playful growl, and in a surge of warm muscular body pressed up against his, Hutch found himself flat on his back, gasping, while Starsky sprawled out on top of him, holding him down in the bed, slid both hands in his hair, up along the base of his skull, and curled his fingers in it.  “You want a benchmark, you’re gettin’ a benchmark,” he said, and leaned down to kiss Hutch again.</p><p>The thrill of having Starsky flip him on his back like that without a single grunt of effort or sign of pain was almost even better than the feeling of his mouth on his, and Hutch felt a glow of happiness, of gratitude, of relief, go through him, a warm, bright, heady lightness that made him feel like he was floating on air.  He moaned despite himself, put one hand on the back of Starsky’s neck, the other on his hip, relishing all that heavy, living warmth, the way he could feel the thud of Starsky’s heart, the expansion and contraction of his lungs.  He tilted his head back, opening his mouth for the kiss, responding eagerly to it, and felt Starsky’s mouth soften somehow on his, going warmer, softer, more tender, as he raised one hand to brush it through Hutch’s hair, brush it back off his temple.  His mouth left his to hover softly over his lips, soft little brushes of his lips over Hutch’s, before he was kissing him again, and again, lingering hot and warm and damp over his mouth each time, sucking softly at his bottom lip, even as he pressed more hot, soft, eager, lingering kisses into his mouth, each one of them dizzying and perfect and heady, so heady Hutch felt hot all over, found himself clutching at Starsky’s neck and hip, his side, whimpering and lifting his hips, not to start anything, or at least not intentionally, just because he <em>had</em> to, all that heat had to go somewhere, had to move him somehow.  Kiss after kiss after kiss, some soft over his lips, then some deep into his mouth, little licks and sucks and nibbles along his damp, swollen mouth, deep slides and swipes of Starsky’s tongue, deep sucks on his own.  In between Starsky pressed kisses, deep and sucking and light and feathery, down Hutch’s neck and jaw, up against his ear, making Hutch gasp, buck his hips, press his hips up against Starsky’s.</p><p>When Starsky finally pulled away, Hutch moaned, his eyes shut tight, still clutching at Starsky’s hair, fingers dug tight into his hip despite himself.  He didn’t want to open his eyes, didn’t want to come back to a world where there was anything that existed other than Starsky and his kisses and the wonderful heat of his mouth and the love and warmth that seemed to wash over Hutch with every movement of lips and tongue against his.  Starsky made a warm noise and trailed his lips over Hutch’s jaw, nuzzled against his cheek, his ear, so that Hutch could feel his stubble against his own skin and sighed, shuddering.  Starsky kissed his ear, the bridge of his nose.  “How’s that for a benchmark, sweetheart?” he murmured, breathed more than anything, just a little bit smug.  Warm breath feathered over Hutch’s nose, his eyelids, his cheek.  He sighed, didn’t want to open his eyes.  His lips felt hot, wet and stinging and tender, probably puffy.  The first time they’d kissed after the shooting he’d touched his mouth, wondering at how hot and tingling his lips felt, like someone had rubbed pepper oil all over them.  Now he just panted and licked his bottom lip and felt his mouth tingle and throb with a pleasant, deep ache and wondered if it looked like he’d been punched in the mouth.  Starsky kissed his cheeks, his jaw, his chin and his neck, petted his hair back from his forehead.  Hutch sighed and slid his fingers tighter into Starsky’s hair, at the back of his neck, pulled him closer.  “Hey, look alive there, babe,” Starsky muttered against his chin.  “Your man asked you a question.”</p><p>Hutch chuckled, light and a little shaky, and it sounded a little weird even to him, high and light and too emotional.  It took him a couple of long moments to place what Starsky had asked, to think back to it.  <em>Oh</em>.  “Not bad,” he managed in almost his normal light, joking tone.</p><p>“Not bad?” Starsky said, his tone humorously, over-the-top offended, fingers slipping deep into Hutch’s hair, a touch that made him shiver pleasantly all over his body.  “Not <em>bad</em>?  You ever been kissed like that before in your <em>life</em>, hon?  You gonna tell me you’ve ever had it better than that?”</p><p>Hutch smiled, still not opening his eyes.  “Yeah, like I said, not bad,” he said.  “You might have to kiss me again for me to decide . . . .”</p><p>“Gettin’ greedy,” Starsky murmured, but he pressed a soft, nibbling kiss into Hutch’s tender, stinging lips all the same, slowly parting them, tracing them with his tongue, stroking Hutch’s hair as he deepened the kiss, slow and soft and warm, before he pulled away again, dropped a soft kiss to Hutch’s parted mouth.</p><p>“Mmm,” Hutch said.  That sounded about right, he decided.  Greedy for Starsky’s kisses?  He was definitely that.  “Mmmm.”</p><p>“Now, that’s what I like to hear,” Starsky said, his fingers tenderly tracing the line of Hutch’s jaw.</p><p>“Yeah,” Hutch breathed.  He smiled a little, pressed himself closer to Starsky’s warm, sturdy body where he lay on top of him, stirred himself to open his eyes, just enough to look up into Starsky’s face, see him right there, so close, barely visible in the shadows and dim light, but enough that he could make out the plane of his chin, his cheeks, his nose, the hint of a smile, the glistening wet of his bottom lip, the dark smudge of his eyelashes.  “C’mon, Starsky, you know you’re the best I’ve ever had,” he murmured.  Admitted, really.  The truth, this time.</p><p>Starsky raised his eyebrows.  “Do I know that?” he said.  “You don’t say it too much, you know, Hutchinson.  Plus, you said I wasn’t even a good kisser—”</p><p>“Yeah, okay,” Hutch said, smiling up at his lover.  “Can we just accept I didn’t know what I was talking about, back then?”</p><p>“Then why’d you say it?” Starsky murmured, grumbling a little, even as he pressed more warm, hungry, nibbling kisses along Hutch’s jaw, chin, the side of his mouth, into his lips, long and lingering over his mouth between each one pressing sweet, searing warmth back into his lips.</p><p>“Because I—I—I didn’t know what I was talking about,” Hutch managed to get out, between sweet, dizzying kisses.  <em>Because I wanted your attention, I wanted you thinking about kissing me, I wanted you thinking about my mouth</em>, while true, was far too pathetic to say out loud.</p><p>“I should have recorded that for evidence just now,” Starsky murmured against his lips.  He bit softly at the bottom one, sank his teeth in until it started to gently sting, then licked at it.  “You saying you don’t know what you’re talking about.”</p><p>“You don’t have to record it; s’not like you’re ever gonna forget it,” Hutch muttered with bad grace despite the way he was smiling against Starsky’s mouth.</p><p>“Maybe that’ll teach you not to shoot off your mouth,” Starsky mumbled, kissing him long and slow again, making his mouth burn with sweetness.</p><p>“Why would it do that,” Hutch mumbled back.  “Got me kissed, didn’t it . . . lots of kisses . . . lots of nice kisses . . .” which Starsky was still pressing against his mouth, Starsky’s fingers stroking the back of his neck, making him feel all shivery sweet “. . . mmm.”</p><p>“Mmmm,” Starsky said, a grin in his voice as he repeated it.  “<em>Mmm.  </em>Now that’s more like it.  That’s my good boy.”  Hutch shuddered all over, barely even noticed his reaction in the midst of feeling that rush of quick, vibrant, vivid pleasure, silvery and hot, all over his body.  “Like when I get you like this,” Starsky added, “all soft and pliant and giving just for me.”</p><p>“Yeah, right,” Hutch said.  He could hear the dreamy, and yes, pliant, soft, giving tone in his own voice, but he felt too good to really care.  The protest was lazy at best, form only.  “Pliant?  Dream on, buddy.”</p><p>“You get all soft and melty, like ice cream in the sun,” Starsky said.  He braced himself with his forearms on either side of Hutch’s head, on the pillow, and started to cover his face with soft, fluttering kisses, his lips all warm and soft against Hutch’s skin.  “Like you’d let me do whatever I wanted to you.  My big vanilla ice cream cone.”</p><p>“You just keep telling yourself that,” Hutch breathed, murmured.  He opened his mouth, let Starsky lick inside it, tongue soft and hot and wet over his lips, dipping in to taste him inside, making him feel plundered and whole and his mouth all wet, his head dizzy with it, kneaded and pet at the back of Starsky’s neck half-unconsciously as he did it, curling his hair around his fingers.</p><p>“I will,” Starsky said, full of self-confidence, the boundless cockiness that made Hutch go warm all over, just to hear it back in his voice where it belonged.  “Because you would.”</p><p>It was true, of course, but it felt like he couldn’t just admit to it, even if Starsky already knew.  “Yeah, right, buddy,” Hutch said with the heaviest sarcasm he could manage, as floaty-good as he felt, which wasn’t all that much.  “Sure I would.”</p><p>“You would,” Starsky said, still full of confidence, and, after all, why shouldn’t he be?  He knew perfectly well that he was right, the kind of power he had over Hutch.  He ran his hands down over Hutch’s arms, his shoulders, his chest, thumbing at his nipples until he shuddered.  “That’s step one,” he murmured against Hutch’s ear.  “Touch you there, rub your cute little nipples a little bit, and you get all hot, go all soft and easy, don’t you?”</p><p>Hutch was panting, staring up through the darkness into Starsky’s face, his dark eyes, even as pleasure shot through him, heat building in his chest, his groin.  He squirmed, and it just pushed the planes of his hips all the harder against Starsky’s.  He couldn’t help it; he arched his back, pressing his chest up into Starsky’s clever hands.  “N-no,” he said.  “I don’t, I—I do not—”</p><p>“Sure, you don’t,” Starsky said, bending his head and pressing kisses along the line of Hutch’s jaw, up to the place behind his ear, suckling and wet.  Hutch bit his lip, hard, against the sound that wanted to escape.  Starsky’s fingers were still sure and hot on his nipples, and he could feel how peaked and hardened and sensitive they were getting.  He’d always been sensitive there, and damn if it hadn’t taken Starsky about two seconds to figure that out.  He’d been taking shameless advantage of that ever since.  “You don’t go all soft for me, easy as anything, huh?  Do ya?”</p><p>“No-o,” Hutch said, his breath hitching.  “I—I don’t, I—oh, God.”</p><p>Starsky chuckled and moved his hands away, stroking them up and down Hutch’s sides now, the parts of his back he could reach.  He leaned in and kissed at Hutch’s throat, just under his chin.  “Yeah?” he said.  “You don’t?  You don’t melt when I touch your cute little nipples?  You don’t melt when I kiss you?”</p><p>“Sure I don’t,” Hutch whispered.  He couldn’t seem to look away from Starsky’s face, his eyes in the dark, the quick quirk of his smile.</p><p>“Okay,” Starsky said, smiling crookedly as he dipped his head to kiss Hutch again, making him sigh and melt into it, giving way beneath his mouth as he carefully pressed the kiss into his mouth.  “That’s not what you’re doing right now,” he murmured, gently stroking Hutch’s hair back, cupping his cheek and jaw with his other hand and rubbing his thumb along his cheek.  “Not at all, huh?”</p><p>“Nope,” Hutch breathed.  He closed his eyes and just lived in those touches for a moment, every inch where they were pressed together, Starsky’s knees between his, his hips hard and bony where they pressed down into his, chests warm and solid together where Hutch felt very hot and flushed.  Starsky’s hand on his face, thumb against his bottom lip, his hand in his hair.</p><p>“You’re a big old liar,” Starsky told him softly, fondly.  “Like you’re not as easy for me as pie.  You get off on denial, huh?”</p><p>Hutch laughed at that.  He wouldn’t have said he <em>got off</em> on it, per se.  “Wouldn’t go that far,” he said, sliding his hands up into Starsky’s hair now.  “I’ve just . . . just got into the habit of it.”  After all, if they hadn’t spent so long in denial, wouldn’t they have gotten to have this a long time ago?</p><p>Of course, if they’d already been doing this before, Hutch wasn’t sure he’d have actually survived the Gunther shooting.  It had been agonizing enough.  He’d barely been able to get himself functioning again, in the hospital, as it had been.  If Starsky had been his lover, too—</p><p>“Yeah, well, maybe so’ve I,” Starsky said, smiling softly down at him.</p><p>Hutch caught his breath, bit his lip.  He wasn’t sure if he should agree with that.  After all, it felt like he’d been waiting for Starsky forever, sometimes, wondering if the looks Starsky threw his way sometimes meant—meant what he wanted them to mean, or if it was just wishful thinking, or if—or if he was just wanting it too much.  Maybe he shouldn’t want this, after all, he’d wondered.  Maybe it was too greedy, asking too much.  He’d thought about that a lot, through the years, about where he got off wanting even more from Starsky than he already got, if maybe that was wrong somehow, to ask so much from one person.  He’d imagined so often how poorly it could go.  Telling himself he couldn’t.  That he didn’t deserve to be that greedy—that maybe it was wrong, to ask for so much, and at the same time desperately wondering if Starsky ever <em>could</em>, the one person who knew more about Hutch than anyone, the one person who put up with him more than any other, if he’d ever want to . . . .</p><p>“Aw, man, look at you, babe,” Starsky said, and his voice had gone a little rougher.  “You’ve wanted this for a long time, huh?”</p><p>“Got it now,” Hutch managed.  His voice sounded hoarse and scratchy, strangely thin.</p><p>“Yeah,” Starsky said, fond and sure.  “Got <em>me</em>.  So you don’t have to worry about that no more.”  He grinned and leaned down and pressed more kisses over Hutch’s eyebrows, the bridge of his nose, up into his hair.</p><p>“I don’t, huh?” Hutch murmured.  It felt like . . . a lot to believe.  Too much to process.  He let his eyes slide closed again.  He shivered.  The last few times he’d fallen in love . . . .  He couldn’t stand failing, losing <em>Starsky</em> that way . . . at least, after the disasters of those other times, he’d had Starsky with him, the whole time, supporting him.  To come back to.  What would happen to Hutch if he failed with <em>him</em>?  The thought was absolutely terrifying.</p><p>“Whatever you’re thinkin’ about, I’m gonna need you to stop it,” Starsky said firmly.  “You look at me, Hutch.”</p><p>Surprised, Hutch blinked his eyes back open, looked up at him obediently.</p><p>“I’m not going nowhere,” Starsky said.  “Not now.”  He shifted over Hutch, spread his legs to settle his knees down hard into the bed, put his hands flat on either side of Hutch’s head, his muscles going tense like he was ready for anything, like he’d physically fight away Hutch’s doubts or fears if he could.  “If three bullets in my back weren’t enough to keep me away from you, nothing is ever gonna be.  All right?”</p><p>“It’s not that easy,” Hutch whispered.  His mouth felt dry.</p><p>Starsky tilted his head to one side and smiled a little.  “It’s not all that hard, either,” he said.</p><p>“It’s not?” Hutch asked with a rueful laugh, one at his own expense.  He looked away.</p><p>He still didn’t miss Starsky’s soft, fond smile.  “Nah,” he said.  “It’s not.  You just think too much, is all.”</p><p>“You’re the one with all the what-ifs,” Hutch whispered.  He blinked his eyes closed, open again, against the ache in his throat.</p><p>“Yeah?” Starsky said.  “Well, here’s one for you.  What if I kissed you until you fell back asleep again?”  He moved a hand, tenderly brushing a mussed, floppy lock of hair back off Hutch’s forehead.</p><p>Oh.  That sounded nice.  That sounded really, really nice.  Hutch had fallen asleep kissing Starsky once before, not long after the end of the case with Gunther, when he’d been exhausted but not willing to move away from Starsky long enough to stop.  He’d ended up falling asleep beside him, and woken up curled on the bed next to him with his ear resting on Starsky’s chest over his heart and Starsky’s hand in his hair.  It sounded . . . ridiculously wonderful to do it not because he’d failed to stay awake despite his best effort, but because Starsky <em>wanted</em> him to fall asleep, was shooting for that, lulling him into it with his kisses and his mouth.  “That sounds nice,” he whispered, because it was true.</p><p>“Then that’s what we’re gonna do,” Starsky murmured confidently.  “You like me on top of you like this, huh?”</p><p>Hutch nodded, even though it didn’t seem like Starsky actually needed an answer from him.  The other man just grinned and squeezed his knees against Hutch’s sides, making him shiver and his breath catch.</p><p>“I know ya do,” Starsky said, and laid down on top of him again, reaching for the pillows.  He fluffed them up, then pulled them down under Hutch’s head.  Hutch smiled at the solicitousness, even as Starsky took both his hands and laid them on the pillow, twining their fingers together.  He rubbed his fingers against the backs of Hutch’s knuckles, and Hutch swallowed hard.  “Mmm, there ya are,” he said.  “Good boy.”  He grinned as Hutch’s breath caught again, as his heart kicked up a notch and shivery heat went through his whole body, and leaned in to capture Hutch’s bottom lip with both of his, sucking on it gently, sliding his tongue along it and applying the gentlest pressure, tight and hot and shocking against the already raw flesh.  Hutch swallowed against his whimpering groan, closed his eyes tight.  Starsky flicked his tongue over that stinging bottom lip in a quick, hot flash of sensation, then murmured into Hutch’s mouth, “If you really wanted to make me happy, you’d give me all those noises, huh?  Let me hear ‘em, babe.  Nothing to be scared of.  What d’you think’s gonna happen if you let me hear you?”</p><p>Hutch shook his head.</p><p>“Well, all right,” Starsky said.  “Suit yourself.  But just know that I like ‘em.”  He squeezed both of Hutch’s hands, making him tremble all over again, because it was so—it was real, and Starsky was holding his hands and it was so overwhelming, it made him feel so much, all at once, and then Starsky was kissing him again.  Slow, soft, lingering kisses, all warmth and wetness and slow, sweet softness, and Hutch kissed back, let himself let go, lost himself in it, in kiss after kiss.  It must have gone on for a while—he was enjoying kissing Starsky so much—but finally he became aware that he was struggling to keep his eyes open, drifting off, in and out between each kiss, Starsky’s hot mouth returning to his, his tongue slipping between Hutch’s lips, waking him each time he dozed off, and reminding him to kiss back sleepily.  He kept it up for as long as he could, even so, enjoying the way <em>Starsky </em>moaned and panted and shivered and rubbed up against him, all warm, velvety skin against his own, the little hedonistic noises he made, one after the other.  The last thing he was consciously aware of was Starsky’s lips and breath and his hand skimming down from the pillow and Hutch’s hand to hold Hutch’s shoulder, the heat of his tongue on his.</p><p>And at least he didn’t have any more nightmares that night.  He didn’t have any more dreams he remembered at all.</p>
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